Malakkai is a Spanish illustrator and street artist who always wanders around with his pen and his notebook. At the beginning of the 2000’s, inspired by the graffiti pieces surrounding him, he joined the OGT crew and started spray painting the walls of Almeria, Spain. He instantly got hooked up on the addictive spray-can smell and the adrenaline rushing through his veins.
Sweet and dreamy aquarelles, tormented pen drawing, colorful and convoluted walls, Malakkai’s style varies depending on the technique he chooses. However, his artworks are always embalmed in a simultaneously sombre, poetic and a somewhat blithe atmosphere.
Malakkai draws his inspiration from the little things of everyday life which he revisits with intriguing and obscure symbolism. His work is a collection of vibrant metaphors and allegories that he represents with a poignant lyricism. Inspired by the surrealism movement, he portrays all sorts of oddities, chimeras and curiosities in a unique fantasy world.
Therefore, just as are our dreams, the visions that Malakkai (the messenger in hebrew) sets on papers, canvases or walls, are equivocal and ambiguous. They can convey at times a sweet and juvenile melancholy and at others, an unsettling and ominous feeling.
However, throughout his phantasmagoric work, the artist manages to achieve the impossible balance between those two atmospheres. This wonder is made possible thanks to the lightness that permeates the pieces. Although conducive to introspection, there is no sense of doom in Malakkai’s works, for they are always tainted with a humorous and whimsical touch.
